Adam Hull

The Hemel Town players need to embark on a ‘physical and mental healing process’ ahead of next weekend’s vital clash with Whitehawk, according to Tudors boss Dean Brennan.

Hemel go into the game on the back of a 4-3 defeat at the hands of struggling Margate and will need to respond in a positive fashion if they are to beat Whitehawk and clinch their place in the National League South playoffs.

Speaking after the Margate game, Brennan said: “I’ve been saying for weeks that the position we are in is a miracle, and it’s good because it is still in our own hands. It’s a one-off game and we’ve got to go out there and win it.

“We’ve got to prepare as best we can, obviously there’s a big healing process now because we’ve got to get the players healed both mentally and physically.”

Like most of the travelling Hemel fans, Margate’s performance left Brennan wondering quite how they had slumped to such a disappointing run of form prior to the game.

“They are a good team, I don’t know how they have lost 10 in a row - they’ve got to really ask themselves those questions because that’s up to them and their club to sort that out,” he said.

“They have got fantastic players and fantastic experience, so we didn’t come into the game thinking about the fact that they had lost 10 in a row. We spoke about it all week, about being cautious.

“We nearly got a result and the boys have shown good character to fight back, but they had the quality and took their goals. Football is about both boxes and we were poor defensively today.”

Hemel again went into the game with a depleted squad due to their ongoing injury saga, and Brennan admitted that this is something which needs to be addressed.

“I suppose it’s a tad frustrating because (Jamie) Butler has played today and he’s not 100 per cent fit, we’ve got no back-up goalkeeper, and three 16-year-olds on the bench. The squad is really depleted and you can’t keep going on like that.

“We’ve just got too many injuries - we’ve got to sort this injury situation out. I don’t know whether it’s because we are training on 3G, I’m not a doctor, but it’s very frustrating. We just don’t have the squad, It’s that simple.

“As a team and as a football club we are just very short at this moment in time, really short. I’m not trying to scapegoat anybody, because I’m part of that.

“I’m not too downbeat because we’ve given a good account of ourselves up until now, and we have got another cup final next week.”